NEW YORK (Reuters) - Boeing Co's (BA.N) chief executive pointed the finger at Alcoa Inc (AA.N) and others for the lack of bolts that has delayed the first flight of its new 787 Dreamliner and threatens its delivery schedule.

The shortage of aluminum and titanium bolts -- known as fasteners in the aerospace industry -- has been publicly discussed by Boeing for six months or so, but the problem is still not completely solved, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney said at an investor presentation on Tuesday.

McNerney said its fastener suppliers are catching up, but full resolution of the shortage is not "guaranteed."

"We have a lot of temporary fasteners in that first airplane, that are now being reworked," he said. "The supply chain is just gradually catching up."

The Chinese demand for such materials has created a worldwide shortage, mainly because companies aren't willing to increase production fast enough (instead, charging higher prices for the products they produce).

Why is it only problematic for the 787 though? Shouldn't all aircraft lines be effected?

Quoting Shenzhen (Reply 2):Boeing are sounding more and more like Airbus during the A380 delays. I doubt too many (only the true believers) ever thought that the IFE vendors were at fault (or the customers themselves).

Boeing is not blaming customers as far as I can tell. They are saying they have a PARTS SHORTAGE and why anyone would doubt that there is actually a parts shortage is beyond me, considering it is well established to be true.

Prices of all sorts of building materials, industrial and otherwise, have gone up in recent years due to these shortages. Heck, even cement is in short supply.

And further, why anyone would doubt Airbus when they say the IFE wiring was causing them problems of interference is also beyond me, since that was TRUE.

Boeing is not blaming customers as far as I can tell. They are saying they have a PARTS SHORTAGE and why anyone would doubt that there is actually a parts shortage is beyond me, considering it is well established to be true.

Prices of all sorts of building materials, industrial and otherwise, have gone up in recent years due to these shortages. Heck, even cement is in short supply.

And further, why anyone would doubt Airbus when they say the IFE wiring was causing them problems of interference is also beyond me, since that was TRUE.

Oh well.

Its all just a conveinent little piece of an overall puzzle that is missing a lot more parts then fasteners and IFE. IFE isn't required to deliver an airplane, just like it doesn't require permanent fasteners at the splices to install the airplane systems and wiring.

In addition, Airbus tried to blame Customers for being late in specifying their airplanes (which was re-buffed quite quickly, as THEY are the customer, not Airbus). The simularities lie in the finger pointing in general.

BTW - why did you not quote the parts of the article where ALCOA accepts responsibility? You break the rules of quoting in your original post by not using ... or other markers to indicate you EDITED someone else's copyrighted material. It is against the law to post the way you did, just so you know...

Since some won't read the article, they will jump to conclusions similar to Shenzhen's.

For example, this quote from ALCOA means something:

Quote: Alcoa, which makes the bolts for the 787 at plants in southern California, said it was tackling the issue.

"We are working with them (Boeing) to try to get them as many fasteners as we possibly can for this program," Alcoa spokesman Kevin Lowery said. "Every day we are getting them more and more -- we are making great progress."

Quoting Ikramerica (Reply 6):Since some won't read the article, they will jump to conclusions similar to Shenzhen's.

Shenzhen didn't jump to a conclusion, as he knows there is a shortage of fasteners, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Yep, the bottleneck has been reached and new contingency plans are being generated.

Quoting Stitch (Reply 1):
So I don't see where, exactly, it is the fault of Boeing management... confused

Let's just say you order a cheese and ham sandwich, but the shop does not have butter so your sandwich isn't delivered at noon (as promised) but rather at 3pm. Would you blame the buttersupplier? Of course not, you blame the sandwich bar.

If you outsource things that does not change your obligations towards your customers. If you outsource you have to make sure they can deliver at the service level you want/need. For example, outsourcing your helpdesk to India is a cheap option but has a low service level. This directly influences the view of the customer towards your company.

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and ther

This is a fallacy that has rapidly grown into a myth here on a.net - Airbus initially blamed the problems on the number and complexity of different interior fittings, but they did not blame their customers for that.

Back on topic - this milestone for the 787 has been a long time planned so its not as if the demand has suddenly crept up on the industry, so why was Boeing or its suppliers not stockpiling these integral parts months before when the demand was shown?

Quoting Ikramerica (Reply 6):You break the rules of quoting in your original post by not using ... or other markers to indicate you EDITED someone else's copyrighted material.

I did edit nothing and provided the source. It did not quote the full article, which happens often I might say.

You seem to be making false aquisition to discredit me. Childish "kill the messenger" that has no place here on a.net (or should have no place..), leading to flaimbait, giving mods an excuse to delete the thread. Worrying but unfortunately succesfull tactic.

Whether or not this is Boeing's fault I can't say, but I think this sort of thing will happen more and more in industry as financial analysts so strongly influencing decision making. Boeing would be looked upon badly if they had millions of dollars worth of fasteners in stock. So would Alcoa. So where should they be? Only in a planning queue? I see this problem on a daily basis, only to a smaller degree.

I think we are here facing the problem of the responsability of the supply chain. As Boeing did gave the responsability to each of the partners, no direct follow-up of the suppliers upstream was probably organized. In the article from Washington Post, it is said that Alcoa did bought different suppliers some years ago and probably did reorganize the production, Who cared? No inventory was imposed or organize?
I start really thinking that small things (bolts) will lead to a big problem!

Is that really a picture of the 787 as it was during the roll out ceremony?

If so that is shocking, not just the number of slaves being used, but also the number of locations without any kind of fastener in at all.
Many of those locations haven't even been protected prior to paint, and have now got paint in the hole and the countersink. All that will need to be cleaned out without damaging or oversizing the hole, and as a result they are sure to end up with quite a lot of 901/902's going in, or do they have some clever way of repairing a composite hole back to nom. instead of oversizing?
If not, and they had a problem with nominal production fasteners, how on earth are they going to deal with all the oversize ones required after that?
Finally, where they do appear to have got a production fastener in, they look either proud or shallow... just does not look good at all.
Apologies if the picture isnt of the 787, but if it is then its a lot worse than i had thought from the various press reports i had read previously. Hopefully this is the worst area, and not indicative of the rest of the aircraft.

Quoting JRadier (Reply 8):Let's just say you order a cheese and ham sandwich, but the shop does not have butter so your sandwich isn't delivered at noon (as promised) but rather at 3pm. Would you blame the buttersupplier? Of course not, you blame the sandwich bar.

OTOH, if there is a nation-wide butter shortage because the butter suppliers can't keep up with demand, you'd probably get frustrated that the sandwich bar didn't give you an accurate time of delivery estimate, but you'd understand that it is not the sandwich bar's fault that the butter wasn't there, especially when both the sandwich bar and the butter salesman admit that.

By the way, who puts butter on a ham and cheese sandwich anyway?

Hydrogen is an odorless, colorless gas which, given enough time, turns into people.

Its not directly Boeing's fault, but I think you always have some kind of responsability when you outsource something. You have to make sure your supplier is doing what is needed to fulfill your requests.

Quoting Moo (Reply 9):This is a fallacy that has rapidly grown into a myth here on a.net - Airbus initially blamed the problems on the number and complexity of different interior fittings, but they did not blame their customers for that.

Moo, do you work for the revisionist history channel? They very much did blame the customers for thier problems.

even worse is when they blamed Engine Alliance for the failure for the first Engine alliance test aircraft not flying.... and they got busted with 4 EA engines sitting outside undertarps at the time that they were saying that EA never sent them the engines.

Quoting Keesje (Reply 10):
You seem to be making false aquisition to discredit me. Childish "kill the messenger" that has no place here on a.net (or should have no place..), leading to flaimbait, giving mods an excuse to delete the thread. Worrying but unfortunately succesfull tactic.

Stop with the martyr routine already, we all know better. Redacting contradictory quotes from a cited passage is unethical at best.

How many airframe manufacturers have their own foundries for forging fasteners (bolts)? This is an industry problem, not some monumental screw up within the 787 program. It does back up some of the things that Newhouse wrote in his AvB book about Boeing becoming very focused on time lines.

In the other conference call it was clearly explained that the shortage is not a problem of overall production speed of these fasteners but rather the amount of different fastener types.

They have only one system to produce them and for every type of fastener they run a large batch. So to get all fastener types required on one aircraft they need to run a full batch of each type.

My understanding is that the person planning these processes was not aware of this limitation and did not start buffering these different fastener types in advance as would have been required. I have a hard time believing that such a mistake would be made at Alcoa who know their own system. And in my experience it is up to the buyer to place orders taking into account the manufacturer's limitations.

Those are some rather aerodynamic bolds. Okay so they are temporary. No wonder Airbus keeps their laser welding technique under wraps. Blame the bolt shortage on the communists. Right, that will do it. Ramp up for the B787 has been several years in the running. I think they had years to figure out how many bolts they needed for the first airframe. Now they are saying the suppliers couldn't deliver? I smell a rat. Say anything to keep the stock price up. Sounds familiar? All I can say is "speed tape".

How many fasterners are required for each 787? Is it in the order of thousands? What is the production rate of Alcoa for these fasteners? The article is not clear on who misjudged. Did Boeing inform Alcoa how many fasterners were required each month? Is Alcoa itself facing raw material shortage of Titanium etc ( given that there was global titanium shortage)?

Quoting Yellowstone (Reply 15):
OTOH, if there is a nation-wide butter shortage because the butter suppliers can't keep up with demand, you'd probably get frustrated that the sandwich bar didn't give you an accurate time of delivery estimate, but you'd understand that it is not the sandwich bar's fault that the butter wasn't there, especially when both the sandwich bar and the butter salesman admit that.

It might not be the fault of the sandwich bar, but it sure is the responsibility. I know I'd get pissed if I got my lunch 3 hours late.

It's Boeing's problem that they don't have enough fasteners. They made a deal with several airlines with delivery dates etc. By doing so you take responsibility of making sure you keep up your end of the contract (delivering the aircraft). That's why you do a SWOT-analysis (google it) of the company, including your supply chain. As the booming economy is nothing new (including china's) this should have come up as a Thread and should have been taken care of. Getting the number of fasteners from the Bill of Material is (even in a very large one such as an aircraft) isn't exactly a hard task, neither is calculating your safety stock. It's all freshman stuff in a logistics study.

[Edited 2007-09-11 23:36:07]

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and ther

Quoting JRadier (Reply 8):If you outsource things that does not change your obligations towards your customers. If you outsource you have to make sure they can deliver at the service level you want/need. For example, outsourcing your helpdesk to India is a cheap option but has a low service level. This directly influences the view of the customer towards your company.

Quoting JPRM1 (Reply 12):I think we are here facing the problem of the responsability of the supply chain. As Boeing did gave the responsability to each of the partners, no direct follow-up of the suppliers upstream was probably organized. In the article from Washington Post, it is said that Alcoa did bought different suppliers some years ago and probably did reorganize the production, Who cared? No inventory was imposed or organize? I start really thinking that small things (bolts) will lead to a big problem!

Quoting JRadier (Reply 24):It's Boeing's problem that they don't have enough fasteners. They made a deal with several airlines with delivery dates etc. By doing so you take responsibility of making sure you keep up your end of the contract (delivering the aircraft). That's why you do a SWOT-analysis (google it) of the company, including your supply chain. As the booming economy is nothing new (including china's) this should have come up as a Thread and should have been taken care of. Getting the number of fasteners from the Bill of Material is (even in a very large one such as an aircraft) isn't exactly a hard task, neither is calculating your safety stock. It's all freshman stuff in a logistics study.

All of these statements imply, at least to me, a belief that Boeing just signed a contract for fasteners and then walked away, humming a merry tune.

This is not true.

Boeing has been working with Alcoa and other fastener manufacturers, as well as securing large and long-term deals for the raw materials (Ti and Al) necessary to make them. They knew how many of these things they'd need per plane and knew how many planes they were going to build and therefore knew how many fasteners they would need at each step of production. And they then contracted out with suppliers who promised they'd get them to Boeing as scheduled.

As a customer, I might blame the sandwich shop for not having the butter, but as the sandwich shop owner, I'd be chewing out the arse of the butter supplier who didn't get me the butter I ordered delivered when I contracted it to be. And like the sandwich owner who ran down to the store and bought some margarine to hold him over, Boeing did the same with fasteners from Home Depot.

And it's not like the 787 is the first commercial airliner to need fasteners. Every Boeing plane does. So Boeing can "supply chain manage" the 737, 747, 767, 777 programs - plus all their military programs that need fasteners - but can't do so for the 787?

The simple fact is that Boeing's suppliers have failed to meet their contracts. They promised Boeing a delivery schedule they couldn't meet. That failure will cost Boeing time and might cost them money, but Boeing will no doubt be getting their pound of flesh out of those suppliers for their failure to perform.

Quoting Stitch (Reply 25):
The simple fact is that Boeing's suppliers have failed to meet their contracts. They promised Boeing a delivery schedule they couldn't meet. That failure will cost Boeing time and might cost them money, but Boeing will no doubt be getting their pound of flesh out of those suppliers for their failure to perform.

Maybe Boeing's suppliers should blame Enron....

25 Blrsea
: The article says that Boeing has been talking about delay in fasteners publicly for the last six months(since march). They might have been aware of i

26 Pygmalion
: Couldn't just let these misconceptions pass on by... so just to clarify for those who don't build LCA for a living... So, your input is to go ahead an

27 Tismfu
: It is correct to insert [...] when you selectively chose sentences/paragraphs from different parts of a source text and combine them, thereby redacti

28 SJCRRPAX
: I think WSP explained it fairly well. The problem is that these fastners are made on automated Lathes, that take quite awhile to set up and breakdown

29 USAF336TFS
: Get used to it. Airbus is already saying that, at the very least, 50% of the A350 will be outsourced. While I'm in agreement with you about being unc

30 Terryb99
: Sorry, but the buck stops at Boeing. I am in the aviation parts business. We stock several million dollars worth of parts, but we also "broker" a subs

31 Shenzhen
: Actually, my input is that the wiring doesn't run under the insulation, thruough a hole in each frame, and on top of the splices. Cheers

32 Stitch
: Boeing and Alcoa have been trying to work around each other, but in the end, Alcoa had a hard delivery date and so did Boeing. And Alcoa's inability

33 EbbUK
: Absolutely, Boeing would never say that. Who they blame is as written in the title of the post. He actually didn't need to as there was agreement in

34 Stitch
: People are asking why there is a shortage of fasteners. What is Boeing supposed to say? Pirates hijacked the shipment in Puget Sound? They got lost i

35 EbbUK
: There is one and only one distinction with the thing they call the buck. It stops once. No stop-overs. It is the fullest expression of responsibility

36 Khobar
: Boeing doesn't make fasteners, and Boeing did NOT outsource the joining work evidenced in the photo. This is disappointing Keesje - I know from readi

37 JTR
: Trying to turn a worldwide shortage of a product onto Boeing's shoulders is ridiculous. Blame the airlines for the unprecedented demand, blame the fly

38 Flysherwood
: Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Boeing just telling everyone what the problem is? I really didn't see Boeing not taking responsibility for the del

39 LTBEWR
: There could be several factors here: 1) Demand, especially from China and elsewhere for these and similar fasteners from reliable quality sources is p

40 EbbUK
: No that is part of the answer given to the question, are you going to deliver the 787 on time as you promised?(valid as it is the investors who want

41 OldAeroGuy
: Using fastners as an example of outsourcing is a bit far fetched. If Toyota had trouble delivering cars because of a tire shortage, would you take th

42 Azhobo
: I am sure the problems are more than the fasteners which seems to be the emphasis by Boeing. My guess is Boeing picked the long pole out of the tent

43 Stitch
: Call me naive or call me biased, but I don't see any "leadership issue" at Boeing on this issue or any other. They have not thrown Alcoa or Alenia or

44 UnknownUser
: What are you basing your 'sureness' on? You'd surly be joking if you had no basis other than just a guess, right? #@^$!!! It really angers me that th

45 Azhobo
: I will keep it simple for you. DO you beleive that Boeing would have flown in august had it had all the fasteners needed for one aircraft back in May

46 AirNZ
: Actually no, it is Boeing who put themselves in the position by not making sure their suppliers could do it. I would have expected more from a compan

47 Stitch
: As I stated in Reply #1 - building fasteners is not a core competency of Boeing's, so they contracted with companies where it was! Boeing never owned

48 Tdscanuck
: They are. Yes, it does. Just like the excellent example above regarding installing the hubcap before the lugnuts, you need access to the backside of

49 USAF336TFS
: Okay... Reading further, there seems to be a rush to play the blame-game here, which, I don't read from either Boeing's nor Alcoa's management. The f

50 Sxf24
: Alcoa has the resources and ability to increase fastener production. It has chosen not meet the rapidly increased demand.

51 Stratofortress
: The plane is still on schedule!!!!!! http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070911/boeing_787.html?.v=2 Quit opining and stick to the facts... 787 execution is nothi